


Crossed Paths

by gazeteur



Category: Shades of Magic - V. E. Schwab, The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 23:55:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11725221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gazeteur/pseuds/gazeteur
Summary: When two thieves meet.——A rewriting of the scene where Kell and Lila meet inA Darker Shade of Magic, redone with Grisha characters.





	Crossed Paths

**Author's Note:**

> As previously mentioned, this fic pretty much recreates the scene where Kell and Lila meet in _A Darker Shade of Magic_ , but with Grisha characters (read: Darklina).
> 
> If you haven't read ADSOM, you might be spoiled a little for the book when you read this fic (the scene happens in the first half of the ADSOM, but some parts have been tweaked for this fic).
> 
> I don’t _think_ it’s absolutely mandatory to have read ADSOM beforehand, but you’ll derive more joy from this fic if you have done so. Things will make more sense.

Back slumped against the alley wall, Alina wonders how she’ll ever recover from this. In her mind she ticks off a list of names of people she’ll have to make excuses to when she gets back—the King, the Queen—before promptly giving up when she gets to Mal. Mal, probably pacing his room, frown knitted into his brow, golden circlet resting askew on top of his perfectly tousled hair, as he wonders why, or _how_ late she’s going to be.

And then there’s the problem of the stone.

Eyes turned upwards to the Grey London sky, her fingers reach into the pocket and come up… empty. She’s sure she got the pocket right. Dread creeps into her bones but she rejects it. Alina sits up and digs furiously into every one of her cloak pockets and folds. _Nononono,_ she thinks, ignoring the pain spreading outwards from her stomach.

In her other hand is the handkerchief pressed into her grip by the stranger from a few moments ago—

Wait.

Alina makes a sound in-between a curse and a groan, wincing as she accidentally agitates her wounds.

She’s been robbed.

 

* * *

 

Walking along a deserted street that leads back to the Stone’s Throw, Aleksander begins to shuck his disguise: hat, black cloak and knife, gleaming in moonlight, returned to the sheath along his forearm. Is it really a disguise if he’s wearing something similar underneath, just a shade more faded, more worn?

His thoughts turn to the girl from the alley earlier. She was odd and out of place, he thinks, her too-red cloak a beacon of sorts amidst the drab, colourless streets on the wrong side of London. His fingers brushed against it when she stumbled into him from out of nowhere, and the fabric felt too fine, too silky, and yet durable. Expensive definitely, but like nothing else he’s ever known.

She wasn’t even looking at him, bumping into him and coming away shaky on her feet. Perhaps she was drunk, from the way her apologies carried a strange lilt to them.

Absentmindedly he sticks a hand in his pocket, grazing the object, smooth and insignificant like a river stone. The moment he palmed the stone he knew it was nothing much, not a diamond or a sapphire or even obsidian. Nothing that will fetch a pretty penny. Aleksander turns several possibilities around in his head. Why a stone? And more importantly, who carries a stone around in their pocket?

But he filched it anyway, fingers closing around it—like they belonged there—and whisking it away into _his_ pocket.

The closer he gets to the Stone’s Throw, the more things fail to add up to his liking.

The strangest thing: the stone sang to him when his fingers first grazed it—the hum of something contained just beneath its surface. And even now it hums as well, if he stands still and focuses on the sensation.

He simply considers it a new mystery, to take apart when he gets back to his room—Barron let him have it back, on several conditions, after the supposedly unexplained arson of the _Sea King_. But still, something else tugs at him like a string. He pushes the thought away.

 

* * *

 

With a terse nod at Barron polishing glasses at the bar, Aleksander melds into the tavern crowd and emerges on the other side to ascend the stairs up to his room.

The door shut and securely bolted behind him, he sits down on the edge of the bed. As he bends over to unlace his boots, he hears the thump of another pair from out of nowhere.

It’s the girl from the alley, whom he bumped into and pilfered the stone from, standing in the middle of the room. One of her hand is out, like a petulant child who wants something that has been taken from her.

He doesn’t remember hearing the door squeak open nor closed, and she isn’t standing anywhere near the half-open window.

“Give it back.”

Aleksander is drawn back into reality when she speaks. His head tilts slightly in question. They are demanding words, coming from the girl from earlier, swathed in the same red cloak. Her chin is up, but something seems off.

Then he finally gets a good look at her face. Strain is written all over her pale features; strands of brown hair fall and obscure half of her face. And is that blood flecked along her jaw?

Her other hand is braced on the wall right next to the door, sliding down slightly and leaving a bloody smear on the wood.

“Give it…” She pushes herself off—or tries to—and stumbles, cloak falling around her like a crimson puddle.

Laces forgotten, hastily tucked back into his boots, he approaches with cautious steps that make no sound. His knife is out on instinct. The room is small; it doesn't take more than a few steps to reach her fallen figure on the ground.

“You shouldn’t have… taken it…” It seems to take all of her energy to raise her head, which flops back down like a ragdoll’s. He watches as her hand, thrown to the side, clenches into a fist and then slackens.

When she has stilled completely Aleksander rolls her over, fingers coming away red from the blood on her tunic. He finds himself considering a myriad of ways to dispose of a body until her eyes flutter, delirious and half-awake. Not dead yet, then.

How did she get in? Often he prides himself on his sharp hearing that has gotten him through the worst parts of London, but this girl has managed to slip past Barron and his door without a single giveaway. Absentmindedly he brushes the hair away from her face and retracts, the blood becoming the least of his worries.

One of her eyes is brown, the other—behind the fallen hair—black. Not just the pupil; the inky, unnatural shade engulfs the space where the white of her eye should be.

Aleksander pulls his legs in to sit cross-legged on the ground, looking down at the girl. Casually straightening the blade, now placed next to him, with a single finger, he considers the events of the night.

A strange girl showing up in his room with no trace of her entrance, and an even stranger stone—supposedly prized. Or forbidden.

Sitting so close to her, Aleksander wrinkles his nose. _She smells like flowers._

And another thought, this time resigned: _It’s going to be a long night._

 

* * *

 

Alina wakes in an unfamiliar bed.

She winces at the throbbing pain encircling her head. The wound on her stomach has stopped bleeding at least, reduced to a dull ache in her side. And her power—

Alina calls to it and it answers, tepid but a relief. The royal blade’s spell is wearing off.

She soon realises she isn’t alone in the room. Pushing herself up on her elbows, she sees a boy around her age sitting in a chair that has been dragged to the foot of the bed.

To the casual onlooker, it seems like he’s devoting all of his attention to winding a timepiece, which gleams silver in the light. His wariness shows only in the slight stiffness in his posture and his proximity, or lack thereof.

Alina’s eyes narrow before she opens her mouth to speak. She could have uttered a multitude of things, like _Where is the stone?_ or _Give it back._ Instead she says, “Your eyes are grey.”

They are: like the shock of winter, ice—that could simply be his expression—but not quite. Like the colour she imagines Grey London’s pennant to be, if—

“How did you get in?” he asks, voice quiet but demanding. His words slice into her like a knife, cutting through all formalities.

Alina hazards a look that drifts all around the room, from the cot she’s in, to the desk littered with several knives, and finally to the shelves on the wall. Flexing her fingers she calls up her power again, pleadingly this time, but it’s half-strength at best.

If he sees her fighting with her thoughts he doesn’t show it.

“Well, are you sitting down?” Alina says finally, reluctance coating her words. “I come from the other London, a London with magic. So I used magic to get in.”

“Magic,” he repeats, the word carrying the muted tone of disbelief. Nevertheless he’s fixated, staring intently at her face, capturing every word that comes out of her mouth.

“Yes, magic. Specifically, I used magic to make a door.”

“It explains the mark.” Aleksander ghosts a single finger against the door, where traces of the spellwork still linger.

Alina frowns. Not many could see the marks of magic, faint enough to be almost invisible. Perhaps he’s observed more than what she’s willing to reveal.

“What about the stone?”

Alina struggles with the next part, biting the inside of her cheek. “And the stone— It’s a bad piece of magic. It should not exist.”

“But what does it do?” he presses.

 _Black magic. Strong magic. Dead magic._ “I don’t know.” Alina breaks away from his gaze, which has become too intense for her liking.

“Do you, really?”

 _“I don’t,”_ she insists. It’s somewhat true, but that isn’t why she’s cross. Alina is angry with him—for knowing too much—and with herself, for handing all that information over willingly. She changes tack.

“You’re not… disbelieving?” she questions.

Aleksander regards her with impassive eyes. His tinkering with the watch has stopped. “No, I am not.”

In the lull, his eyes flick to a corner of the room. To a box sitting high on a shelf.

Alina lunges, and he’s there to meet her throat with a knife drawn out of nowhere. The stone is held triumphantly in his hand—also produced out of thin air, with a small flourish—while the other pins her to the wall with metal poised over her jugular.

“The stone, it does something, doesn’t it?” he asks over the dagger, like he’s merely confirming a conclusion he has reached.

“No, don’t—“ Alina begins to protest, but she’s too dizzy to wrest the stone from his grip.

A dark expression passes across his face and stays. “We shall see what it does.”

The edge of the dagger lifts from her neck as Aleksander steps back.

Ribbons of black smoke spider down from his closed palm, drifting aimlessly before it gathers focus—sharpening into the relief of a conjured object. Everything becomes more solid by the second: an ornate hilt, unmarred blade, and smoke leaping up, up—tapering to a sharp point.

A formidable blade, the same shade as the finest obsidian. Only, it commands the light in a manner too sinister to be obsidian. It’s made out of the same kind of magic that has consumed Black London.

Aleksander swings the sword experimentally, testing its heft. The blade hums, not with the song of a smith-forged blade but with something unworldly and off.

There is reverence in his voice. ”So this is what it feels like—“

“—You don’t know what you’re doing—”

“…To wield magic.” He savours the last word like the final piece of a puzzle he’s longed to solve.

Aleksander rests the sword against the wall, turning his attention back to the stone. It draws him in with an irresistible pull, with the speaking of a language he does not quite understand. His thumb rubs against the smooth side of the pitch-black stone, his expression wistful. What else does he want?

The stone waits for his command, smoke spewing out from it to linger in a haze above his clasped hand.

Now he understands what it is like to want something so desperately: to throw his defences to the wind, to drop all his knives on the ground in favour of something greater. He lets his will take over, and the stone to draw it out.

The smoke twists and changes course. Details are etched in the haze, revealing muscle and sinew gleaming the same shade as the stone he holds in his hand. It’s not what he expects, but he quickly understands its source: a figure, with too-long arms and leathery wings, hunched over in a strange, primal way.

Both of them are silent for a moment, while the creature stands, immobile, in the centre of the room.

Aleksander speaks finally, raking his gaze across the monster as if to eternalise the sight. The stories his mother once told him, they are real. It is all real. He wants to believe and now has reason to. “It’s just as I’ve imagined it.”

“What _is_ it?” Alina is equal parts terrified and in awe. If they weren't in possession of an object that broke the rules in all four Londons, Alina would've thought that power suited him well. Almost too well. It's an observation she cannot bear to voice out loud.

When he turns away from the creature to address her, it’s like a spell broke. A smile, bitter, flits across his face and is quickly gone. "Something from my dreams.”

Slowly he raises a hand, tentatively grazing the feathers on its back. He’s looking at the creature when he speaks to her again. “Would you like a closer look?”

Alina regrets observing too intently; he’s mistaken her wariness for curiosity.

The creature is large but fast: a blink, and it’s right in front of her—heaving from breath, with a sinister grin of teeth that grows more exposed by the second. The joints of its half-extended wings are tipped with talons, the same shade of shifting, unnatural black like the rest of it.

Alina inches back a few steps at its sudden proximity. Hairs stand on the back of her neck. “Is it supposed to do that?” And more firmly, “You should dispel it, now.”

“How do you do that?”

“Will it away. Say ‘Go away’, ‘Leave’, or ‘Be gone’, in your mind. Like that.”

But something passes over the monster’s face—if one could call it a face—that looks to Alina to be awareness. Gradually it begins to turn back towards its conjurer, with a strange, unworldly shift that doesn’t seem to be Aleksander’s doing. The awareness in the beast’s expression morphs into something else: dawning on its face, the slope of its back, the set of its jaw. Something like… anger.

Brows furrowed in concentration, Aleksander’s knuckles are white against the pitch black of the stone. “It’s not working,” he admits.

The creature doesn’t wait for his word before it lunges, sights firmly set on the stone. Aleksander throws his hands in front of his face on reflex. Vicious, black claws catch on his arm before they dissolve, together with the monster—breaking piece-by-piece into charcoal smoke.

Behind it, Alina holds her hand out while the words of the spell— _As Anasae_ —lingers in the air.  
Then she stomps over and pries the stone from his grip. When their fingers touch, he lets it go without a protest.

The moment he releases the stone it is like strings being cut away. He staggers back a step or two, before recovering quickly. If he’s drained from using the stone, it isn’t easily apparent.

Alina forces herself to pocket the stone before either one of them changes their minds.

“Okay, that’s enough,” she mutters, almost to herself. The day is stretching out too far for her liking.

Alina’s hand whips out to pin one of his wrists to the wall. Inwardly, she’s glad the stone has the same exhaustive properties on him like it does on her. She focuses on the wood as it warps and bends under her will, to arc just below his hand. Over the demands of the spell, she can barely hear him protest.

“What are you doing?” Aleksander snaps, pulling futilely at the restraint—now a solid ring of wood.

“What I should have done before,” Alina answers seamlessly, leaving him shackled to the wall as she sweeps her own knife off the desk and tucks it back into the sheath at her waist.

She heads to the door but changes her mind with the turn of a boot, making for the window instead.

He stops her, briefly, with his words.

“You’re going back.” Aleksander rakes his mind hurriedly for a word, a name, lost in the childhood he’s left behind. Spat out with malice from his mother’s lips.

“Well, excuse me then, because I have things to do; duties that are grossly overdue,” Alina says with a roll of her eyes. She rests a foot on the window ledge, readying for a jump.

Things—he doesn’t exactly know what—are slipping away from him as clear as the sight of the sun dipping below the horizon. His free hand finds a knife in a pocket he’s forgotten about. As he prepares to aim, Alina cuts him off.

"If you're thinking of throwing that at me, please reconsider," she says, tossing the words over her shoulder. "It may just be your only tool for getting yourself out.”

He can see her grin in profile when her head turns to the side, dark mischief running along its edge. The sight of it sparks a foregone memory in his mind. Unsure if the word gripped him or he reached for it, the name rises up like a heady rush of wind, “You’re going back to Arnes.”

Alina hopes he misses the way she hesitates as she leaps, momentum taking over and pulling her down to the streets below.


End file.
